Last year, the Republican Party tied it’s fate to the dangerously un-American path of Donald J. Trump. Now, at least one prominent member of the GOP is complaining about the results.

Representative Mike Simpson (R-ID) told reporters today, “[President Trump is] making it very, very difficult, because all the news about his latest tweet, what he says, and then he gets mad at us because we don’t defend it.”

The Hill reported that Simpson sounded “exasperated” as he lamented the president’s distractions.

Simpson went on to express relief that the Trump-endorsed Roy Moore lost last night’s Senate Special Election, saying “The real winners are the American people and, actually, Republicans, because we don’t have that albatross around our neck.”

The statements are part of an underlying rift in the Republican Party that continues to grow even as the party tries to stay united around a shared belief that poor and vulnerable Americans should be abandoned so billionaires and multi-national corporations can have more money.

Still, Simpson sees potential for the Republicans to hold onto Congress in 2018, giving Republicans a 50-50 shot of keeping the House. “A lot of it still depends on what happens next year. If we get some things done, maybe [we will] improve our chances.”

For all his faults, Simpson was wise to qualify those chances with “maybe.” After all, if Republicans’ tax scam, which has the support of just one in four Americans, counts as getting “some things done,” Simpson and his colleagues could find themselves facing backlash from tens of millions of angry voters.

Either way, Republicans in 2017 have made an excellent case for voters to kick them out in 2018. And it seems that even they know it.